I love flying at night. This time we were flying from France inbound to Rotterdam Airport and we had to cross some frontal weather overhead Northern France and Belgium before we would arrive at our destination.
Stormscope equipped aircraft
The Cirrus SR22T turbo-charged aircraft I was flying is equipped with a stormscope. This instrument can pick up discharges from thunderstorms up to 200 NM (nautical miles) away from the airport. On the righthand screen in the cockpit you see the yellow dots, which depict the thunderstorm discharges. As you see, we are flying right through the middle with thunderstorm activity both on the left and right of the aircraft.
A stormscope does not give accurate information. Ideally you would add a weather radar system to it. However, this aircraft is not equipped with such a weather radar system. However, air traffic control could inform me about the situation here as they had access to a weather radar system and could advise me on the heading to fly.
The above movie is shot with the iPhone and not of great quality. However, it does give a good impression of a flight at night. The iPhone is connected with an audio-cable to the intercom system in the cockpit. This way I can record the audio as I hear it in my headset.
I was flying here on instrument flight rules (IFR) and most of the time in IMC (instrument meteorological conditions) and thus not visual with the ground of surroundings.